


Excess and Absence

by glimmerglanger



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Biologically Around 13 so Whump of a Kid, Blood and Injury, Gen, Isolation, Solitary Confinement, Thirst (Not in a Good Way), Whumptober 2020, Young Troopers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerglanger/pseuds/glimmerglanger
Summary: “I can’t,” Waxer said, wringing his hands together, shaking Cody again. “I told them not to go because it looked like rain but they wouldn’t listen, and now Tektek’s froze. We can’t get him down. You’re the only one who could get up to them, and he’ll listen to you. Please.”Something about his tone reached into Cody’s chest. Waxer wasn’t usually so nervy. He pushed to sit up, scrubbing at the back of his neck, and said, “Get to them where? What’s going on?”OR the one where Cody tries to help out some of his brothers and pays for it.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 140
Collections: Randomness





	Excess and Absence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2020 (prompt for Isolation). Cody and his batchmates are biologically 13ish in this fic. I feel like "boys will be boys" shenanigans probably weren't appreciated on Kamino. This means there IS mistreatment and whump of a kid in this. Please consider that before reading.

Troopers were to stay in their bunks after lights out, unless given specific orders by a trainer. Which meant there was no good reason for Waxer to be shaking Cody’s shoulder at oh dark thirty.

Cody woke quickly; most of them were light sleepers, an in-built feature. Soldiers that slept too hard were dead soldiers, after all. He frowned up, prepared to ask a question and never getting the chance. Waxer blurted, barely managing to keep his voice quiet, “You’ve got to help.”

Cody wasn’t sure exactly  _ when  _ his brothers had decided that they ought to come to him when they wanted help. It felt like forever ago, at least before the last growth spurt that had left his arms and legs hurting endlessly. He sighed and said, “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t,” Waxer said, wringing his hands together, shaking Cody again. “I told them not to go because it looked like rain but they wouldn’t listen, and now Tektek’s froze. We can’t get him down. You’re the only one who could get up to them, and he’ll listen to you. Please.”

Something about his tone reached into Cody’s chest. Waxer wasn’t usually so nervy. He pushed to sit up, scrubbing at the back of his neck, and said, “Get to them where? What’s going on?”

#

None of them were supposed to climb the domes. They did it anyway. It was a challenge and there was something sweet and freeing about scaling the smooth sides of the buildings, reaching the top and standing there, able to look out across the endless sea.

Cody knew that. He’d made the climb himself, more than once, looking for tiny holds for his fingers and toes, propelling himself upwards. But scaling the domes meant picking your time. It meant waiting until their trainers were distracted and agitated; they got that way, sometimes.

They weren’t, currently.

And, most importantly, no one tried it when it was raining. The domes were difficult to scale at the best of times. When it rained…

Well. Cody had watched brothers slide down and fall into the water below, when it rained. He’d watched trainers refuse to fish them out, listened to them cry out for help until they grew exhausted and sank below the surface.

They shouldn’t have disobeyed regs, the trainers liked to say, when it happened. And if they were going to break the rules, they shouldn’t have fallen. It was raining, Cody noted, heart beating faster behind his ribs, as he followed Waxer out through the bunks, out into the midnight air, the sea spray rising above them. He scowled as Waxer pointed towards Tektek and Boil, halfway up their dormitory. 

“It wasn’t raining when they started,” Waxer said, bouncing his weight from foot to foot, looking over at Cody, expectation in his eyes. “And now Tektek is stuck and won’t go forward or back. But you can help him, can’t you?”

Cody looked at the pair, clinging to the side of slick, sloping metal, the storm blowing up more fiercely all around them, and knew what the right answer was, according to his training. He frowned, tore off his shirt - getting as much contact with the surface as possible was the only way to effectively scale the domes, especially when they were wet - and said, “Yes.”

#

Boil refused to leave Tektek, as Cody scaled the dome up to them. Cody didn’t think, much, on the way up. Thinking got you killed, scaling the domes. There was just the cold, wet metal against his chest and the effort of clinging to it through force of will, more than anything else.

He was sweating, though it was hard to tell with all the rain, by the time he reached them, ropes looped over his shoulders, feeding back to Waxer so far below. Cody blinking water out of his eyes, looking across at Boil, and said, “Get back down, I’ve got him.”

Boil looked relieved, nodding jerkily as he started his descent. Tektek just kept clinging to the dome, eyes squeezed closed, breathing fast and shallow, goosebumps raised all over him. And Cody could have snapped at him for pulling such a karking dumb stunt and putting Boil in danger too, freezing up, but…

But that wouldn’t help either of them, in their current situation, and so instead he said, “I’m going to help you get back down, alright?”

Tektek jerked out a nod, eyes still closed, and Cody sighed, slowly, slowly shifting the rope off of his shoulder.

#

Cody had the rope knotted around Tektek’s waist by the time the lightning started, the winds whipping up and pulling at them both. He flattened himself against the cold metal, listening to Tektek make a sound that was snatched away by the wind, carried off into the storm.

“Almost there,” Cody said, tugging the knot, and he really thought it was going to work, until, from down below, he heard the shouting of upraised voices, too loud and too deep to be his brothers, and Tektek flinched, jerking away, and--

#

Cody remembered falling, in a distant sort of way. It was over too quickly to really register. One second he was plummeting, rope tangled around his wrist, tangling with Tektek as they dropped, and the next he was bouncing off metal, rolling, and coming to a stop, somehow, on the walkway below the dome.

He lay there, stunned, his head spinning, and felt Tektek trying to stir around against him. The rain came down on both of them, but that didn’t really explain the hot wetness on the left side of his face, or the taste of salt in his mouth.

Cody blinked, his head spinning, and when he opened his eyes, Priest was leaning over him, barking, “What, exactly, is the meaning of this?”

“I take responsibility for the situation,” Cody said, through the buzzing noise in his head, because - because Tektek was in no position to take responsibility for anything and anyway, it wouldn’t have happened if Cody had done better and it wasn’t actually an answer to the question, but it was, Cody knew, what Priest actually wanted to know.

“Good,” Priest said, faceless behind his mask. “That makes things simpler.”

#

The trainers called the little space where they dragged Cody “the punishment area.” Cody called it the Box, same as all his brothers, because that was what it was, really. Just four walls, a floor, a ceiling, and barely enough room to lay down, if a person wanted to.

“Three days,” Priest said, giving Cody an unnecessary shove as they reached the Box. He’d been going in, anyway, ready to accept the consequences of his actions. The shove propelled him to the far wall, and he swallowed the sound his body tried to make when his shoulder jarred into it.

He turned back, frowning, but the door was already closed.

Cody stood there, leaning against the wall, with rain water dripping off of his hair and freezing on his skin. He reached fingers up to his face, wincing at the first bit of pressure. He’d… cut his face, badly, by the feel of it. There was blood running all down his face and throat. Head wounds, he knew, bled a lot.

There was nothing to try to stop the bleeding. Nothing to dry off with. Nothing at all, just four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. 

He paced, to keep warm, counting his steps to take his mind off of the pain, trying not to think too much about three days.

Usually they were only thrown in the Box for one.

#

Eventually, the rain dried off of Cody’s skin and hair. His face stopped bleeding. That took much longer and if he twitched his expression, it started again. The itching feeling of blood drying on his shoulder and throat ate away at him, as the day wore on. 

He picked at the blood, a bit, but all that did was get it under his nails, so he stopped. The light never changed in the Box. They all knew that. He counted his steps to keep track of time, jerking to a stop when he lost track, well into the thousands.

He exhaled, shakily, then, glancing at the door and wondering how much longer he had to go.

No one visited, while you were in the Box. That was the rules. No one came to check. No one came to feed you. No one came, no one at all.

Cody had spent time in the Box before, he’d waited, alone and cold, for a day, here and there. They’d said it would help him listen better. He supposed it must be true. He couldn’t imagine a reason the trainers would lie to him.

But it hadn’t worked, yet.

He stared at the door a long time, wondering what they’d done to Tektek, Boil, and Waxer. And then he swallowed and wedged himself into the corner, and tried to rest, just for a little while. Time in the Box went faster when you were unconscious. He remembered that much.

#

Cody slept, fitfully. When he woke up, there was nothing but the Box. He didn’t bother knocking on the door or asking to be let out. That never worked and - sometimes - it just made them add more time. They’d already given him three days.

He wondered if they’d make an exception and send in food and water. He doubted it, staring across at the far wall and smelling blood in his nose, the entire left side of his face a blaze of agony, the pain keeping him company.

Eventually, he shifted away from the wall. He knew how to get through time in the Box. Keeping the body busy helped. And so he stretched out across the floor, hands under his shoulders, and did push-ups until his shoulders and back were trembling, until sweat ran down his forearms and dripped off his nose, and then he did some more.

It passed the time. When his arms gave, eventually, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It looked the same as the floor. 

He closed his eyes, tucked his hands behind his head, and grunted a bit with the first sit-up.

He counted how many he did to keep his head busy. 

#

They didn’t bring him food. They didn’t bring him water. Cody considered that, as thirst ate away at the inside of his head. Probably, he thought, it had been a bad idea to expend so much energy so early in his stay, but….

He’d assumed they’d give him water, at least.

He watched the door, for a long time, his mouth dry, hoping they’d crack it open and just… slide a canteen through. They didn’t have to talk to him. They didn’t have to violate his punishment. They could toss it in without a word, without him even seeing a scrap of another person.

They didn’t.

#

Cody’s face started bleeding again, at some point. He’d lost track of time, but he thought he was somewhere in the second day in the Box. He sat in the corner, back straight, feeling blood wind slow and lazy down his cheek.

It seemed unfair that he could still bleed, with how thirsty he felt. Surely there was no liquid to spare in his body. 

The blood reached his chin and a drop fell to his collarbone. He reached up and smeared his fingers through it, looking at the red stain across his skin. It tasted salty, when he licked it off his fingers. Saliva flooded a bit into his mouth and he swallowed, easing a bit of the pain in his throat. His stomach rumbled, unpleasantly.

But he’d gone without food before. 

He brushed fingers over his cheek, and pain was nothing but pain, but he wondered how bad the damage was; the entire side of his face  _ ached  _ and felt hot to the touch. He knew about infections, and frowned, tracing the full scope of the damage with cautious fingers.

The wound stretched from above his brow and down to his cheek, wide and deep. He should have been in medical. They should have stitched it up, put bacta on it. But obviously that wasn’t going to happen.

Cody pulled his fingers away, pressing them together, the blood tacky on his skin. He looked at it for a moment and then absently smeared a finger down over his forearm. The red left a mark, a stain across his skin. 

It made sense, in the Box, to drag his fingers through the blood on his jaw and to keep going, painting patterns on his other arm and, when he ran out of canvas, his stomach. The blood itched a bit as it dried, and it got uglier, losing some of its redness. But at least it passed the time.

#

Cody’s head started swimming, eventually, and refused to stop. He laid down in an attempt to get the world to stop spinning around, feet pressed flat to the far wall, the top of his head brushing the other side of the Box.

He wondered, absently, if he’d grown while he was inside the Box. Sometimes that happened. Once he’d grown almost two inches in a week. His legs didn’t hurt like they had then, though. He hummed, off-key, just to hear a sound inside his own head.

He wondered how Waxer, Boil, and Tektek were.

He wondered how many days it had been.

He was very thirsty.

#

Cody didn’t dream much, generally. He dreamed in the Box, strange dreams that spun through his head like wisps, there and gone again. He dreamed of clinging to the side of the dome and losing his grip, plunging into the cold waters so far below, gratefully drinking down the sea, even as it drowned him.

He dreamed of the door opening, of a droid rolling in and pouring water over him, and startled awake sure that it had been real. He blinked in the empty Box, breath hitching in his chest, and pulled himself to his feet.

No one answered, when he banged on the door. 

He knocked his fist against it over and over, until there were smears of red-brown all across it, and no one came.

He considered, sinking down and breathing sharp and shaky, that perhaps they’d forgotten where he was. Three days was a long time. So much could happen. It would be easy to lose track of one trooper, there were so many of them.

He tried to breathe slow and deep and couldn’t, breath catching in the back of his throat with each inhale. 

#

Cody wasn’t sure, entirely, when he started shivering, but he discovered he couldn’t stop, even with his arms tucked close to his body and his legs pulled up. He felt thirsty, but at least it was a distant kind of thing, held back by the blurriness of his head.

He slept, disjointedly, jerking himself awake when he dreamed of the door opening, over and over. He felt picked at the blood he’d smeared across his skin, before, peeling it away with fingers and nails, until his skin was clean and tender.

They’d forgotten him, he felt certain of it.

They’d forgotten him, and soon it wouldn’t matter.

He knew, perfectly well, how long he could go without water. Longer than a nat-born, perhaps five days. Maybe a week. It must have been that long already, he thought, staring across at the far wall. Perhaps longer. He’d always gone above and beyond the expectations of those around him.

Perhaps it had been a week, already. Maybe two.

It felt like an eternity.

#

Cody didn’t bother lifting his head when he dreamed about the door opening. He’d dreamed it many times, countless times, and it was never true. He kept his forehead resting against his knee, waiting to fall back into a sleep beyond dreams.

“Well, well,” a voice said, but the people in his dreams talked to him, so that didn’t mean anything. A shadow fell across him, eclipsed him. 

Something hard brushed across his cheek, jolting a wave of pain through him, but he hadn’t the energy to flinch away from it, not even as it slid down, under his chin, forcing him to lift his head. 

Cody blinked up into Priest’s mask, light shining down around him. He held a baton, the tip under Cody’s chin. “Not so disobedient now, are you?” Priest asked, drawing away the baton, and Cody tried to determine if it was a dream or not, resisting the urge to let his head fall forward again.

He pressed the back of his head to the wall, blinking away the spots in his vision, and Priest said, “Well, answer me.”

“Sir,” Cody rasped, through his raw throat, unsure if he were dreaming or not and beyond caring.

Priest made a sharp, dismissive sound, turning away from him. He said, over his shoulder, “Get yourself down to medical, then. You have work to catch up on.” And he left, just like that, leaving the door standing open behind him.

Cody stared after him for a long, long moment, before fighting his way to his feet. The world bobbed and swam around him, full of spots that kept coming and going. He braced a hand on the wall and took one step, then another.

He fully expected the door to be closed when he got there, but it was open. He stepped through, hearing a strange, hitching sound as he did, wet, and then hands were catching at him, pulling his arms up, over shoulders, Waxer and Boil pressing close to him, taking his weight, and the world went away, just for a while, as they gripped him.


End file.
